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Friday, August 15, 2008

Special Times

Yet another wonderful and fun-filled afternoon was had with the the girls that we meet with! There was a smaller group of us yesterday, and in addition to the girls, a young lady who had helped us when we first began the group two years ago was able to join us, too (she is also an older sister of some of the girls). For the first part of the afternoon, we visited a bit, prayed together and then made a cucumber salad. We had hoped that the girls would be able to harvest the cucumbers themselves, but with it being a rainy day, we used ones that had been harvested earlier.

They did a thorough job washing the cucumbers!

The girls have greatly improved with their slicing/chopping skills and quickly had 8 cups of sliced cucumbers in the bowl.

Then it was time to mix up the dressing . . . there are only four other ingredients that go in this dish so each of the girls chose one to do, and I did the other . . .

Add the cucumbers and stir. Chill for at least two hours and then enjoy!

Once the cucumber dish was in the refrigerator, the girls wrote a recipe card for it and then we went back to the kitchen to grate some zucchini.

Stopping for Smiles

Measuring two cups per bag.

Grating zucchini was an adventure, and the girls did quite a good job with it! Though, one cannot grate zucchini without making a mess ;) . . . there was zucchini on the counter, on the floor, and even on the girls! They did a good job cleaning it all up though (and joyfully too!). So in addition to the girls bringing home a container with some of the salad that they had made, they also brought home a bag of grated zucchini to be made into zucchini bread for their families.

Once everything was all cleaned up, we gathered in the living room for our lesson. This week we were looking at a negative quality that is spoken of several times in Scripture in direct relation to women. That being contentiousness. We first looked up the word in the dictionary and found it to mean:

1. Apt to contend; given to angry debate; quarrelsome; perverse2. Exciting or adapted to provoke contention or disputes

There were some difficult words in the definition and as it was a bit hard for the girls to understand, we broke the definitions down and discussed them before moving on.

Once the girls understood what 'contentious' meant, we turned in our Bibles to Proverbs 21:19:

"It is better to live in a desert land than with a contentious and vexing woman."

We asked the girls to describe what they pictured a desert to be like, and their answers were along the lines of: hot, no water, sandy, cactus, etc. When looking at the Scripture verse just read, we see that even living in a desert is better than living with a woman (or girl) who is contentious and argumentative. After writing down the above verse, one of the girls asked what 'vexing' meant, so we once again pulled out the dictionary, read the definition (provoking; irritating; afflicting) and discussed it.

Moving just a few chapters forward in Proverbs, we read verse 24 from chapter 25 and also verse 15 from chapter 27:

"It is better to live in a corner of the roof than in a house shared with a contentious woman.""A constant dripping on a day of steady rain and a contentious woman are alike;"

Thus we see that not only would one rather live in a desert than in a house with a woman who is argumentative, they would also rather live on the corner of a roof and with a constant dripping! All of this presents the idea of how bad/destructive a contentious woman is. And as women and young ladies who are seeking to be obedient to the Lord, this is something that we especially need to strive not to be . . . to instead be a peacemaker; one who builds up instead of tearing down.

We asked the girls what they thought a peacemaker was, and they shared that it is one who avoids arguments. Yes, indeed, it is one who strives to not argue, but to instead bring peace. We looked at and discussed several verses that speak of this:

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God." (Matthew 5:9)"So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another." (Romans 14:19)". . . Live in peace with one another." (1 Thessalonians 5:13b)

After examining these verses, we looked at our own lives and areas that we individually are more given to be argumentative in. We then thought of and discussed ways that we can avoid arguing in the future . . . thus being a peacemaker instead.

Just like the last time we were together, the girls copied down every single verse that we looked at this week! How joy fills my heart when seeing their diligent taking of notes and hearing their thoughtful questions and insightful answers to our questions!

After the lesson was finished, the girls wrote in their journals and were able to accomplish quite a bit on their cross-stitches. All in all, it was another wonderful day.

I enjoyed the update! :) I may have to try making the cucumber salad, since we have had quite a few cucumbers from our garden. It looks like the girls had fun making it, thanks for sharing the recipe. :)

It is so neat that you let them take home some of what they have worked on. I bet they have such a sense of satisfaction when they serve their "projects" to their families!Your lesson brought pricks to my heart as I see the areas that I need to ask the Lord for help in. Thank you~Ashley

I wish I was able to suggest to you many titles, Anonymous, but so far, we have only found one book for piano/violin duets of hymns, scriptural songs, etc., . . . but it is an excellent one! It is called Old English Hymns, and it can be found at www.melbay.com. I am not sure if you saw the video of the piano and hammered dulcimer duet posted several weeks back, but that song was taken from this book. I hope that this is a help to you!

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About Me

I am a 31 year old from the beautiful midwest who enjoys blogging about her daily life as a . . . daughter, sister, believer in Christ, seamstress, fiddler, pianist, hammered dulcimer player, gardener, quilter, crocheter, cook/baker, homemaker, ‘farmer’ (do chickens, rabbits and goats count?), small business owner, lover of nature, bird watcher, thinker, writer, and more. And I hope you enjoy your visit here!